Many SaaS companies are reconsidering their organizational structures by moving post-sales functions such as customer success and support under sales departments, aiming to drive growth from existing customers, according to saastr.com. This trend has gained traction as firms face slower growth and seek to extend customer relationships beyond initial deals.
The rationale is that sales teams already know the customers, so having them manage post-sales could theoretically improve retention and upselling. However, in practice, this approach often falls short for customers. Traditional VPs of Sales typically focus on closing deals and moving on, viewing post-sales management as a distraction from meeting their quotas. While Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) increasingly oversee the entire revenue cycle, successfully integrating sales and post-sales requires strong leadership beneath the CRO, which many startups lack.
This shift reflects evolving revenue strategies in SaaS, where the role of customer success is changing. The integration of post-sales into sales departments challenges the conventional separation of functions, highlighting tensions between growth objectives and customer experience. The effectiveness of this model depends on leadership quality and the ability to balance closing new deals with nurturing existing accounts, a balance that many companies are still trying to achieve.
According to saastr.com, the success of having post-sales report into sales hinges on hiring a skilled VP of Sales under the CRO, a step many startups have yet to accomplish. This organizational experiment continues to unfold as SaaS companies adapt to market pressures and seek sustainable growth.